24 Mar Can COVID-19 cause sepsis? Explaining the relationship between coronavirus disease and sepsis
On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the 2 Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2019*) a global health emergency, declaring it an “unprecedented outbreak.” Legitimate concerns of a deadly pandemic have risen as the virus continues to spread around the world, with cases reported in 73 countries in Europe, Asia, South America, North America, and the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
As with all major public health crises, misinformation and fear run rampant. The importance of factual information is equivalent. To this end, the European Sepsis Alliance wishes to provide the following answer to the question of whether COVID-19 can cause sepsis. The answer is a "YES" qualified .
The currently accepted definition of sepsis is life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Based on currently available information on clinical cases of COVID-19, it appears that a little percentage of COVID-19 infections can lead to such organ dysfunction and death.
To date, the most reliable information on the clinical syndrome resulting from COVID-19 comes from recently published data from Wuhan, China, and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on February 7, 2020. The most common symptoms attributed to COVID-19 infection requiring hospitalization were fever, fatigue, and dry cough. Most of the cases also had low white blood cell counts and abnormal blood coagulation parameters. Of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, 26% were sick enough to be treated in an intensive care unit (ICU); of these, approximately 60% developed respiratory failure and 31% developed shock. Prolonged hospital courses were not uncommon. Fortunately, even among patients sick enough to be hospitalized with COVID-19 infection, only 4% died, meaning that even among hospitalized COVID-19 cases, almost 96% have survived. Larger epidemiological data, both inside and outside of China, also support a case fatality rate of around 1%.
However, despite the attention paid to COVID-19, it is important to realize that it is by no means the deadliest infection globally in 2020. It is not even the deadliest virus. Fewer than 3.200 deaths have been attributed total to COVID-19. By comparison, the flu virus has been responsible for at least 16.000 deaths in the United States. only so far in the 2019-2020 flu season, with an in-hospital death rate close to 5% – higher than the 4% in-hospital death rate seen with COVID-19 in China. As an additional frame of reference, recent estimates put annual deaths due to sepsis worldwide at more than 11 million.
Treatments and vaccines are urgently sought but are unlikely to be available within the next year. In the meantime, all people, particularly those in areas where COVID-19 has already struck, should focus on the basic protective measures recommended by the WHO: washing hands, maintaining social distancing, avoiding touching the face, practicing proper hygiene. proper breathing, stay home if you feel unwell, and get immediate medical attention if the triad of fever, cough, and shortness of breath develops.
In conclusion, while fears of a COVID-19 pandemic are legitimate, the ESA believes that robust and adequately funded health systems, which have already significantly improved survival rates for sepsis over the past two decades, will be able to Identify and manage patients with emerging infections such as COVID-19. Additionally, while most people affected by COVID-19 will not develop life-threatening sepsis, the global threat posed by COVID-19 supports the need for all citizens and healthcare workers to ensure they are familiar with the early signs of sepsis and We appreciate that sepsis can be caused by a multitude of infections, such as this novel coronavirus, other viral infections, seasonal influenza viruses, or common bacterial infections such as pneumonia, urinary tract, abdominal, or wound infections. never has the catchphrase The World Sepsis Day Movement rings truer than now: stop sepsis, save lives.
This article was published in the European Sepsis Alliance website as of March 4, 2020, using the latest data from the WHO Status Report as of March 3, 2020. The opinions in this news post are not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Special thanks to Nathan Nielsen, Luis Gorordo Del Sol, Emmanuel Nsutebu and Simon Finfer for their help.
* For simplicity, we will refer to the virus as COVID-19, although it is technically SARS-CoV-2